PureBlogging

Like most writers, I like to spend a lot of time reading about how to write. There’s lots of really useful information out there, and it’s a better way to rationalize procrastination than playing Chain Factor or watching Mythbusters reruns. Here are a few of the best resources I’ve found on my travels around the Web — some of them have actually helped me, and I hope to integrate those that haven’t into my writing as soon as I become a more responsible and productive person. Which should happen any day now.

10 Benefits of Rising Early from Zen Habits. Technically this isn’t specifically about writing, but it has helped me to become an early riser, which has helped my writing and overall productivity dramatically. Whenever I wake up late, I always end up working late into the night — which means getting to bed late, which means the cycle starts all over again.

10 Steps to Creating the Habit of Writing from Write to Done. I particularly like the “No Exceptions” rule — again, I find when I fall out of the writing habit, it’s very hard to get back into it.

The Greatest Sales Letter of All Time from Copyblogger. I could easily place the entirety of Copyblogger’s material on here and be done with it, but that would cross the line from “lazy” to “really pathetically lazy,” and I’m not quite there yet. A great example of writing that achieves its goal with absolutely no fat or prevarication.

Ten Timeless Creative Writing Techniques, again from Copyblogger. At the risk of inching closer to that “really pathetically lazy” label, I offer this as well. The information in this post helped me turn half-decent ad copy into something that I’m really pleased with.

How to Rewrite from Justine Larbalestier. Justine, a real, honest-to-goodness fantasy writer, tells the hard truth about the revision process. Spoiler alert: It ain’t easy.

Title Tags: First Impressions at the Search Engines from Flyte Web Marketing. This post isn’t big on details, but it really helped me to understand the importance of title tags in selling Web copy.

How to Write and Use Description Meta Tags on Your Web Pages from Zero Million. The page is a little ad-heavy, but this is a really great tutorial for writing great, concise meta descriptions. The first piece of advice (”Write Like a Journalist”) was the best for me (but that may be because I used to be a journalist).

Is the Net Good for Writers? from 10 Zen Monkeys. Long article. Good read. Quite a bit of insight from a wide variety of writers, Web entrepreneurs, publishing professionals and overall geeks.

How to Write Faster, Better and Easier from Pick the Brain. When I first read this post, I hated it. “Duh!” I thought. “Who doesn’t know this stuff?” Then I realized that while I knew the information presented here, I rarely practiced it. A good reminder of what a good writing process entails.

Live and Write from Ask MetaFilter. Some great advice in the comments here. Particularly good is the final comment about dream writing vs. lucrative writing.

10+ Unusual Ways to Make Easy Money on the Internet if You Love Writing from NicheGeek. Some of these are a bit on the skeezy side (”Social Bookmark Whoring?”), but it certainly got my creative muscles pumping.

The Complete Nobody’s Guide to Writing Query Letters by Lynn Flewelling. I dread writing query letters. It almost makes me thankful I don’t have a finished novel under my belt. But this tutorial is thorough, and gentle on the first-timer.

An Introduction to Journal Writing from D*I*Y Planner. This post really helped me get over my self-consciousness when it comes to journal writing. I used to get upset if every entry wasn’t Chatwin-quality. Not any more.

Hack Your Way Out of Writer’s Block from 43 Folders. I’ve used each of these suggestions at least once. The Brian Eno reference is also cool.

Lost in Your Own Writing? from JCM Enterprises. Good advice overall here. Also, it references one of the two best dramas currently on network TV. The other one is Battlestar Galactica. No arguments please.

50 Tools That Can Improve Your Writing Skills from Dumb Little Man. All 50 tips are from the Poynter Institute, one of the most respected journalistic institutions in the nation. Many of these are technical rather than conceptual, so I’d wager this is the most useful item on this list. That’s why I finished with it.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always liked the idea that I could monetize my blog and make passive income. I’m going to write the content anyway, so why shouldn’t it make a bit of money? The trouble is, how do you decide which advertising system is best? Here’s what I’ve discovered so far on my blog advertising quest.

Adsense

I started out with Google Adsense. It was easy to get an account, and relatively easy to set up. In the few years that I’ve been using Adsense, ad creation has got even easier. However, it took more than 18 months to reach first payout. Why was this? Because when I started out, I had no idea what I was doing. I though I would stick some ads there and the income would roll in. I knew nothing about ad placement and hotspots. Heck, I was only just learning about blogging.

Adsense Placement

Since then, I’ve learned a lot about where to put ads so that people will see them and occasionally click on them. Depending on my blog theme, I may put an ad in the header (though usually I avoid this in favour of having information relating to my blog). I put a block in the sidebar, and I usually put some under the post title or above the comments on single post pages (not both, as I wouldn’t want the pages to look too cluttered).

What really made the difference to Adsense earnings was having the ads on a blog with great content. My first blog was fun, but had no identifiable purpose. With Get Paid To Write Online, everyone knew what it was about and the ad income increased quickly. Of course, Google keeps making changes and the income fluctuates, but it makes some nice pocket change. I don’t think I’ll get rich on it any time soon, though.

Kontera

That’s why I decided to try some alternatives. One that I’d heard a lot about was Kontera. Those are those hideous double underlined links that pop up all over blog posts. I have to be honest; I don’t like the look, but at least it means that they can’t be confused with Google ads. More people seem to click on the links and those ads are also bringing in pocket change.

Good features with Kontera are that it’s easy to make sure that the ads only appear in certain places. Although Kontera tells you how to do that with code, I find it easier to use the Kontera Integration plugin. I usually switch off the ads on current posts and switch them on again on old posts. After all, people still click on ads in the archives.

They’ve also got a new publisher interface which tells me which keywords attracted the most clicks in the last week, and which pages got the most clicks. In my latest report, it was a post on creating a writing portfolio. Incidentally, checking my analytics stats reveals that that was my second most popular post in the last week.

Affiliate Ads

Finally, I have also been experimenting with Commission Junction, Clickbank and others. So far, I am underwhelmed, but I know what I have to do to fix that. All the 125×125 ads bar one are for products and services that I have actually used. In order to get people interested, I need to talk about those services. Otherwise, why should anyone even bother to click? Some have, but I won’t hold my breath waiting for the next one.

That aside, it’s also a question of finding complementary products. For a writing blog, that might include ads about writing courses, self promotion and blogging. I’m still searching for those that are the best fit for my site (suggestions welcome). In the meantime, I’m trying out Project Wonderful, which was recommended to me. I’ll update you on how that goes in a few weeks.

My conclusion is that no single company has all the answers. Perhaps I should pay more attention to private ad sales instead, as these seem to be more lucrative. If you monetize, what have you found to be most effective?

Whenever I want to write a blog post, the first thing I do is to ask myself if there’s a topical issue that I currently want to discuss on my blog. If there’s not, the next thing that I do is go to my blog post notebook and search through the ideas I have compiled there in order to find a blog post that suits my current needs. That notebook is something that I put together as the result of several “blogstorming” sessions and it has never failed to be useful to me when it has come time to write a blog post.

Here are the steps I took to create a notebook full of potential blog post ideas:

• Set aside a chunk of time. I actively engaged in the process of blogstorming by setting aside a chunk of several hours in which I planned only to focus on coming up with a notebook full of ideas for future blog posts.

• General blog post brainstorming. I simply sat down and wrote out a list of all of the things that I could think of which would possibly make great blog topics. I attempted not to censor my ideas during this process.

• Organization. I then took each of these ideas and organized them into a series of topics so that I could see what areas I was focusing on in my brainstorming. As I did this, I came up with other blog ideas that fell under these same topics.

• Brainstorming topics. Once I had organized the entire original list, I did another brainstorming session. In this one, I brainstormed ideas for topics instead of for posts themselves. For example, my original set of blog post ideas resulted in broad topics including “writing tips” and “reading for writers”. In my topic brainstorming session, I added things like “being a green writer” and “how to find writing jobs”. I didn’t yet have any posts for these topics but I had the general idea down on paper.

• Brainstorming posts for these new topics. You guessed it, once I had new topics I had to start filling them in with ideas about what to post under each of these topics. I added things like “eight ways to be a green writer” and “how to find freelance jobs in your own community”.

• Inspired brainstorming. Once I had exhausted every post idea that came out of my own brain, I turned to my favorite bloggers for inspiration. I went to the blogs that are about topics similar to those on my blog and started reading through posts. As I read, I got ideas about posts that I’d like to write inspired by what they’d written. I jotted these down. When I was done, I went ahead and organized these ideas into the topic categories that I’d created before.

• Group brainstorming. After this was done, I got together with a group of writer friends and asked them to assist me in developing the list. Through discussion, we added new topics and new blog post ideas. (We eventually did this for everyone in the group.)

• Keyword lists. The final phase of my brainstorming session was to go through the list and to come up with a whole slew of keywords related to the topics and posts that I’d brainstormed. Once I had a keyword list, I looked at it to see if there were any additional keywords that I wanted to touch on but hadn’t. Surprisingly, “web 2.0” wasn’t anywhere in my initial set of post ideas. I added that as well as some others. As you might guess, I then generated topic and blog post ideas based on these keywords.

• Turn it into a notebook or spreadsheet. In order for this to be useful to me, it had to be organized. I originally created a spreadsheet which showed the categories I was interested in and then listed the posts within those categories that I wanted to write. I added a section for the keywords that I wanted to consider in each post. I later turned this into a handheld notebook because that was easier for me to flip through and use to my advantage.

• Rest and revise. I’ve gone back and done this process on two other occasions now in order to generate fresh ideas and expand what’s in the notebook.

Having a notebook filled with the ideas for my blog posts has helped me out as a blogger in a number of different ways. First of all, I’m never lacking for something to write because there’s always an idea I want to develop. Secondly, I feel that I am able to be more organized because of the organization I put into this notebook. I can easily see what topics I have dwelled on and which haven’t gotten any attention. This lets me broaden what I’m writing about on a regular basis and keep the general blog balanced for my readers. Additionally, I find that this notebook has helped me to write more about topics that truly motivate me. In the past, I would just write about the first thing that came to mind. Now I make a conscious decision about which of my ideas to develop next. As a blogger, I firmly believe that taking the time to do “blogstorming” on a regular basis can significantly benefit your work.

Related links: 101 Great Posting Ideas @ IHelpYou Blog, 10 Killer Post Ideas @ Peformancing, Places to Get Ideas for Blog Posts and 23 Great Ideas for Blog Posts

Question of the Day: What techniques do you use for coming up with blog post ideas?

For many of us, the idea of generating a significant income on the internet is not just a dream; it is a goal that we work at on a regular basis. While it would be great to be able to write something that would bring a flood of traffic to our site, the truth is, it doesn’t usually happen that way. Oh, there are a few that happen to be in the right place at the right time, but for the majority, building a readership is a process that takes time.

Those who have worked their way up know that a vital piece in that process is building your network. That isn’t something that happens overnight. Don’t think you can sequester yourself away for a weekend, and come away with a well developed network. It takes consistent effort over time for your network to grow.

If you are new to this, forget about the flood of traffic. For now you need to focus on starting a trickle of traffic. Over time that trickle could become a small stream, and eventually a river. There are things you should be doing on a regular basis to get that trickle started. Later, after your network is large enough to support itself you will probably abandon, or at least reduce your efforts, on some of these, but in the beginning they are very effective.

Content

Anyone who is anyone in internet network building will tell you, “Content is King.” If you are going to spend the time and effort to attract people to your site, you need to make sure you have something for them when they get there. Great content will not only keep them on your site longer, and make them curious enough to pike around a little, it is content that will bring them back, and turn them into regular readers.

Despite the fact that this advice is so prevalent, many new bloggers treat this step as optional, or something to work at while you are doing all of the other steps. If that is you; Stop. By taking the time to work on great content before you start spending significant effort to attract traffic, you will see better returns on the time you’ve invested in the long run.

Without content, you are spending a lot of energy bringing in new visitors. they come to your blog, but they don’t find much of interest, so they leave. Now you have to spend your efforts trying to lure them back. The result: wasted time and wasted effort.

Start with concentrating on longer, more substantial articles. Short pieces are OK, and they can serve a purpose, but longer pieces tend to attract more attention. Make sure you have at least 8 - 10 of these articles in place before you start worry about traffic. Once those are in place, make sure you are posting new material on a regular basis. Keep it fresh and interesting. Also, don’t stop writing longer pieces just because you have your 8 - 10 opening pieces. Make sure you continue to add substantial pieces regularly.

Comment

Once your content is in place, you can start thinking about bringing a little traffic in. One great way to do that is to find blogs that would attract readers that are similar to the readers your are trying to attract. For instance, one of my other blogs focuses on owning and operating a successful restaurant. I wouldn’t see much success by commenting on a parenting blog. Instead, I focus my efforts on small business and entrepreneur focused blogs. I want to reach readers who are interested in running a small business, or may be thinking about getting into the restaurant business.

Once you have located a few appropriate blogs, begin commenting on articles that have been posted. Don’t just post a quick “Nice post” comment. Make sure you have something to add to the conversation. Find a point that the writer made, and take it a little deeper. You could also take issue with something the writer said, but be very careful with that tactic. You may hurt yourself in the long run if you come off as being adversarial.

One technique that some bloggers use is to occasionally use the comment to point back to a relevant piece on their own blog. Again, be smart if going that route. The article you are sending them to has to be directly relevant, and if you over use the technique, it will look like a cheap ploy to steal traffic.

The value of commenting on other blogs is that every comment is accompanied by your name, and a link back to your site. When you comment on a regular basis, readers start to recognize your name, and if you are making insightful comments, some of them will venture over to your site to see what else you have to say.

Trackbacks

Trackbacks are kind of an indirect method of building traffic. While readers aren’t led to your site by the trackback, it may catch the attention of the blogger you are linking to. If they like what you said, and they like some of the other posts on your site (great content), many of them will return the favor and link back to your site. If the blog tracking back to you is large, it could result in a nice increase in your traffic.

Try to focus on smaller to mid-sized blogs for the greatest benefit. While catching the attention of the big guys would mean a huge traffic bump, it is a lot harder to get noticed by them. The large, more popular blogs have huge readerships, and they get hundreds of trackbacks on a regular basis. While it can be done, it takes a great deal of consistent effort to see any effect.

A more effective strategy is to focus on smaller blogs, building a relationship, and growing together.

Guest Blogging

Monday, Steven Snell wrote about writing for money, and he made a couple of points that relate to building your network; writing for other blogs helps expand your network, and it helps to build name recognition.

This is another technique that can yield good results, but it doesn’t happen right away. Before you can expect someone to allow you to write for their blog, you have to show that you are capable of writing something worth reading (again, great content). When you focus your efforts on building your own blog, you can use your blog to market yourself to other bloggers.

There are a couple of ways to get guest blogging gigs. The first is, ask. Offer your services to a blog that you have built a relationship with. Like everyone else, bloggers are busy people. By having someone else writing an occasional post it frees up a little of their time. Some of them may offer to pay you for your efforts, but for now getting paid isn’t the issue. You are looking for opportunities to attract traffic to your site.
The second way to find other blogs to write for is to check out the freelance writing job boards. It is hard to write for a blog every day. Some blog owners decide that it is worth paying someone else to contribute, and they post those offers on job boards. If the subject is something you’re familiar with, you may end up with an ongoing way to build traffic.

Carnivals

While the popularity of Blog Carnivals seems to have diminished somewhat, it can still be a good way to get noticed. To take part in this, go to Blog Carnival ( and submit one of your posts. If your article is selected, everyone who subscribes to that carnival will get a notice about your article, along with a short blurb about the article. They can then go to your blog to read the full article. If your content is good, they will check to see what else you’ve written.

Compound Interest

Like investing, building traffic works on compound interest. You start with a trickle of traffic and build on that. As that trickle begins to grow, you will find more opportunities to reach greater numbers of readers. Over time, with consistent effort, your readership will grow, and eventually your network will reach a point that it grows by word of mouth.

It all starts with great content!

Social networks offer a variety of benefits for bloggers, writers, businesses and others. Below you will discover 13 ways you can benefit from the many social networks available on the Internet today:

1. Make new friends: Connect with others around the world who may share the same interests as you.

2. Reconnect with former classmates: Ever wonder where your best friend from high school or college went? You may come across them on social networks. Maybe you’re looking for an old flame. You just may find him or her on a social network site as well, and if you do, you can view their profile to see if they’re still available.

3. Find love: Social networks such as Match2020.com might help you find the soul mate you’ve been searching for all these years.

4. Share photos with your business associates, other bloggers, customers, family and friends: Share all your favorite pictures with family members and friends who live far away. Better yet, share photos of your products, business or anything you believe will benefit your growing list of business contacts with business associates, other bloggers and/or customers.

5. Share your success or expertise with the world: If you’re a writer, you can blog about your success or build your portfolio by blogging on your niche topic. Business owners, you can share your business successes, failures and knowledge with potential customers and other business owners. Whatever you decide to share will show others you know the business and it could help them learn from your mistakes.

6. Find a job or search for potential clients and/or customers: Are you searching for a writing, blogging or other job in your specialty? Social networks could have the job you’re looking for. And for those of you looking for potential clients and/or customers, social networks are a great place to start. Begin by creating a profile detailing your experience and/or products.

7. Interact with your customers and/or fans: Search social networks for your customers and fans. Once you find them, add them to your list of friends and communicate with them by offering discounts, specials, freebies and etc. Better yet, place a link to your social network on your blog or website and invite your customers and/or fans to add you to their friends.

8. Promote your business and/or services: Join as many social networks as you can, and then create a professional-looking profile that details your experience and the products or services you offer. Once your profile is live and you’re happy with it, seek out people that you believe may have an interest in what you’re offering. Next, add them to your list of friends.

9. Connect with other business professionals, bloggers or writers: Look for other business professionals, bloggers or writers and add them to your friends. You can then interact with them by sharing advice and more.

10. Find a distributor for your products: People looking to make money often hang out on social networks, and you could have just the product to help them.

11. Show off your undiscovered talent (writing, singing or etc.): Many social networks will allow you to write a blog as well as upload your music, photos and videos to share with millions. Take advantage of these features, because you never know who might discover your talent and contact you.

12. Find experts to interview: Do you need an expert for your article? Social networks are filled with experts on all subjects.

13. Keep up-to-date on your favorite celebrities: Find out the latest news on your favorite celebrity. Will your favorite celebrities be visiting your town next?

The above are only a few of the many ways you can benefit from social networks. Feel free to add to the list in our comments area.

It happens.

That great idea for a post you thought of as you were out driving, running errands?

Gone!

When inspiration pings, you are usually in one of three places:

• You can’t write (like driving in a car or walking down the street).
• You’re nowhere near a computer or the web (waiting in line at the grocery store, morning routine in your bathroom).
• You’re in front of the computer but you’re right in the middle of something else (like, I dunno, work).

Here are three ways to capture those fleeting ideas so we can act on them later and write those killer blog posts:

When you can’t write at all, speak: get a digital voice recorder or send voicemail messages to yourself. Digital voice recorders are better because you can speak for long periods of time.

When there is no computer or web access to be found, a fantastic low-tech solution is to use a notebook. I use a Moleskine Notebook, which are built like tanks and have a ribbon to bookmark your place and an interior pocket. Make sure you have a pen, too, like a space pen, that’s small enough to carry everywhere and that always works.

When you’re in front of the computer but in the middle of something else, you can’t take the time or suffer the interruption to log into your blog. Instead, use Google Notebook. Then get the awesome Google Notebook Firefox extension. I use this all the time to quickly capture Ideas as I work on the computer.

Three is a lovely number, but this list could perhaps be four, or six, or twelve. How do you capture your blog post ideas before they slip away?